1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to optical fiber bundle technology and more particularly relates to aligning optical fibers.
2. Related Art
Optical fibers are considered a significant improvement over the information carrying capacity of metal wires. Optical fibers have greater bandwidth than metal wires i.e. they can transmit more data per unit time than a metal wire. According to current technology a single optical fiber has the capacity to carry 8.44 megabits per second (Mbps) of data.
Bandwidth can be increased by combining optical fibers together into bundles. For example, an Optical Carrier 1 (OC1) fiber optic bundle has a bandwidth of 51.84 megabits per second. Fiber optic bundles comprise, for example, up to 40 optical fibers in a single bundle, typically in the form of a ribbon cable where all the optical fibers are side to side in a row relative to each other. There are plans to place up to 128 optical fibers in a single fiber optic bundle.
Optical fibers have a central core through which the light carrying the data must travel. The central core must line up to whatever element it is desired to receive the information carried in the light traveling through that fiber. With single fibers it is difficult enough to align the core of the fiber and the receiver of the element to which the optical fiber is to deliver the information. The difficulty in aligning multiple optical fibers is multiplied by the number of additional optical fibers in the fiber optic bundle. Within an optical fiber, the core of the fiber can have an eccentricity removing the core from the center of the fiber by as much as one micron. Contributing to this misalignment as greater numbers of optical fibers are placed in fiber optic bundles is any warp inherent in the fiber optic bundle structure. Thus, alignment issues present a significant challenge in implementing optical fiber systems.